Chapter 23
Penny
Iblinked, and it was morning. Full morning, with sun blazing through the bedroom window and the mattress gone cold beside me.
I yawned and stretched, apparently cat-like enough that Nutmeg decided to join in.
She sprang onto my stomach with her bushy tail flicking and her needle-sharp claws pricking my bare skin.
I shoved her aside with a chuckle and clambered out of bed, far from rested but eager to check on Kit.
As thoughts filtered in of what had happened the previous night—or rather only an hour or two earlier—my enthusiasm turned into anxiety.
We were leaving town that morning, and it couldn’t happen a moment too soon.
Dressing quickly, I barreled down the hall and into the kitchen where Kit sat at the table, drinking coffee.
“Ready?” I asked, a bit breathless.
He cocked his head toward me, then considered his half-full coffee mug. “There’s no rush. No Anders urging us out the door this time.” He chuckled to himself and took another sip of the steaming drink.
No Anders, but I did have to consider my half-brother, who likely hadn’t stopped cursing my name since I interrupted his sleep.
I considered him, but I wouldn’t mention him.
Not to Kit. Maybe not at all. Certainly not until we were far enough removed from Ashpoint that if Merrick’s anger caused him to explode, we would be out of range of the blast.
“Ready to get it over with is all,” I explained, turning to rummage through the cabinets for a quick breakfast. “Not especially excited about wreaking havoc on someone’s farm. Hits a bit close to home, you know?”
It was hardly a question, and it felt unfair to push my guilt onto him, but I was in an odd state with exhaustion and excitement, anticipation and dread stuffed inside me like ingredients in a stew.
Bad enough to worry about Merrick blowing up over our earlier encounter. I felt so full I might burst, too.
Kit rose and pushed his chair in. “About that—”
“Are you ready?” I faced him with a biscuit and a piece of jerky in my hands.
He frowned, then nodded. “I suppose I am.”
We stopped at the stables where we said goodbye to Thoma while picking up Flint and our cart.
The crate of rats was already loaded in the back, packed so full the vermin had to crawl on top of each other to move.
I shuddered at the sight and took my seat on the bench beside Kit.
I would surely get some rest later but, for now, I was too busy checking over my shoulder for Merrick or Violette charging after us with their fists raised.
Luckily, our departure was uneventful.
Outside the city gate, the cart bumped along the road and Kit guided the horse with ease.
I opened my sketchbook and, as two hours passed and the terrain shifted from rocks to sparse stands of trees, I doodled a few things.
Icicles hanging from branches and squirrels peeking from their leaf litter dens.
Kit was quiet, and I felt more like yawning than talking until he leaned over to comment on my sketch in progress.
“You really are quite talented, you know.”
I added the last tuft of hair to the squirrel's bushy tail, then tucked my pencil behind my ear. “Not sure if it's talent or practice. Some good must come from all the time I waste on it.”
“It's not a waste,” Kit replied. “Art’s a way to capture the beauty of life, to frame it for a moment. You're good at that. I enjoy seeing things through your eyes.” Smiling, he faced the road once more.
I smiled, too, still surprised by supportive comments about my sketching.
Mother and Father gave some compliments about it, though less so the older I got since I often neglected my chores for the sake of penciling something in a book or on a page.
And Merrick was outspoken about the frivolity of it all.
The notion of it being wasteful came directly from him.
Closing the sketchbook, I smoothed my hand across the leather cover Kit had etched himself. He had a good eye and talent he often denied. It made me wonder.
“Did you ever try it for yourself?” I glanced over at him. “Drawing, I mean.”
He shook his head. “It isn't the sort of thing my father would have had patience for. I don't think he would have seen or understood beauty even if it struck him between the eyes.”
He chuckled, and I joined in. His smile lingered, and I couldn't shake the thought of how soft it was, how gentle he could be—always was, really, though he tried to hide it.
I wanted to touch his cheek and his lips slightly pinked from the cold, to see if he felt as tender as he looked right now, but his next words interrupted my thoughts.
“I've been meaning to ask about your sketches.” He hardly paused long enough for me to respond before he continued. “Do you ever draw people?”
I glanced down at the book resting atop my thighs. “Only one really,” I admitted.
“Me,” Kit said.
My head whipped aside with both brows raised. “How'd you know?”
“Anders.”
The confession rocked me and reminded me of the lumberman's taunts about what he'd seen in the pages of my sketchbook. He'd invaded a world that was meant to only be mine, then made a mockery of it.
“He told you?” I asked and, when Kit nodded, I groaned. “Oh, gods…”
Kit chuckled again. “I don't mind. I'm actually a bit flattered, though I'm not quite sure I fit in with your usual fare.”
He glanced over, meeting my gaze so I could see the full scope of his face. Skin tinted with blush, hair and eyes stark in the light of the morning. The lines of his jaw and the hollows of his cheeks were all just right. Shaped in a way that, of course, I wanted to draw.
“You do,” I told him, then blushed a bit myself. “You're beautiful, too.”
Kit passed the reins to one hand so he could wrap his other arm around me. I leaned into his side and tipped my head onto his shoulder.
My fingers traced the draping branches of the willow tree carved on my sketchbook cover until I mustered the courage to speak again. “Do you want to see it? It's hardly fair that Anders has and you haven't.”
I didn't need to explain what “it” was. Kit understood and, after a moment's hesitation, he nodded.
I swallowed hard and opened the book to leaf through it. There was more than one picture of Kit. More than two or three. I'd traced the shape of his hands and done a short study of the controlled chaos of his dark curls. But there was no mistaking which one Anders had seen, so I turned to it first.
Since I'd never asked Kit to pose for me, the rendering was taken from my imagination, a scene I played out in my mind countless times before I put it on paper.
Kit was stretched out on our bed, bare from head to toe with one arm behind his head, looking at me with the gentlest smile.
Seeing it now, with Kit looking on, my stomach fluttered because he was beautiful. He was art. On and off the page.
He was also silent for several seconds, and the quiet gnawed at me until he said, “That really is a lot of me.”
My face stung with embarrassment, and I shrunk in the folds of my cloak. “Only the best parts,” I murmured.
Kit hummed softly, and I wrestled the impulse to snap the book shut until he finally returned his attention to the road. His arm stayed curved around me, keeping me close as we jostled along.
“Are you mad?” I asked.
“Why would I be mad?”
I gathered the sketchbook to my chest. “It's personal,” I said. “Private.”
A soft smile curled the corner of his lips. “It's shared. With you.”
His fingers pressed a reassuring squeeze into my bicep, and I relaxed.
“And Anders,” I muttered.
Kit groaned, and we fell into laughter.
The cart rolled on another mile or two. I was snug in my cloak with the hood tugged up and ready to doze, but my mind circled back to the idea of our destination and the crate of rodents squeaking and squirming behind us.
I heaved a mournful sigh and snuggled against Kit’s shoulder, and he gave me a squeeze.
“I meant to tell you,” he said, almost as if he’d heard my thoughts. “Keep an eye out for somewhere to dump those rats.”
“What do you mean?” I straightened and peered over at him without bothering to mask my concern.
Surely he didn’t mean I had to pick the farm.
I couldn’t possibly. We could drive off the edge of forever, and I’d never choose.
I couldn’t bring that kind of ruin on someone. I wasn’t sure how I would bear it.
Kit waved his hand toward the woods growing thicker all around us. “Somewhere they'll be able to spread out and find food that isn't stored in someone's barn.”
I gawked at him, confused but hopeful.
He shrugged at my unasked question. “There's no one to say we didn't leave them on a farm, just as there's no one to say we did. This Oath is about faith in Eeus, and the Bone Men believe that we initiates are accountable to Eeus alone.” He carried on casually, and with a bit of cheer that made sense the longer he spoke.
“So, if we don’t complete it, Eeus will be the one to punish us.
And I'd rather not complete it if it's all the same to you.”
He shot me a sly grin, and I knew I was beaming. I wasn’t even worried about Eeus’s punishment because I didn’t believe there would be one. I’d learned differently from the Symbiarch in Wendwood, and I no longer saw the god as the malevolent being I’d been warned about in my youth.
Drowsy as I’d been before, now I felt alert and eager to scan the trees and fields for an open space that might make a fine home for a few dozen rats. It didn’t take long to find one. We pulled off to the side of the road, and I clambered into the back of the cart to heft out the crate.
Kit laughed as I struggled to carry the rodents into a clearing beyond the tree line, then opened the wooden box. They scattered in a mass exodus, cutting trails through the snow and carrying away the sense of foreboding that had plagued me since the messenger gave us our instructions.